Mark+Twain

A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. [|Mark Twain]

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. [|Mark Twain]

A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. [|Mark Twain]

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. [|Mark Twain]

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation. [|Mark Twain]

A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read. [|Mark Twain]

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. [|Mark Twain]

A round man cannot be expected to fit in a square hole right away. He must have time to modify his shape. [|Mark Twain]

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often. [|Mark Twain]

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. [|Mark Twain]

Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. [|Mark Twain]

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter. [|Mark Twain]

All generalizations are false, including this one. [|Mark Twain]

All right, then, I'll go to hell. [|Mark Twain]

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure. [|Mark Twain]

All you need is ignorance and confidence and the success is sure. [|Mark Twain]

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. [|Mark Twain]

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. [|Mark Twain]

Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary. [|Mark Twain]

Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today. [|Mark Twain]

As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep, and never to refrain from smoking when awake. [|Mark Twain]

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint. [|Mark Twain]

Be careless in your dress if you will, but keep a tidy soul. [|Mark Twain]

Better a broken promise than none at all. [|Mark Twain]

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written. [|Mark Twain]

But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? [|Mark Twain]

Buy land, they're not making it anymore. [|Mark Twain]

By trying we can easily endure adversity. Another man's, I mean. [|Mark Twain]

Cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. [|Mark Twain]

Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. [|Mark Twain]

'Classic.' A book which people praise and don't read. [|Mark Twain]

Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. [|Mark Twain]

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. [|Mark Twain]

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. [|Mark Twain]

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. [|Mark Twain]

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest. [|Mark Twain]

Do the thing you fear most and the death of fear is certain. [|Mark Twain]

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. [|Mark Twain]

Don't let schooling interfere with your education. [|Mark Twain]

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. [|Mark Twain]

Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream. [|Mark Twain]

Don't tell fish stories where the people know you; but particularly, don't tell them where they know the fish. [|Mark Twain]

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. [|Mark Twain]

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned. [|Mark Twain]

Everything has its limit - iron ore cannot be educated into gold. [|Mark Twain]

Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven. [|Mark Twain]

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. [|Mark Twain]

Familiarity breeds contempt - and children. [|Mark Twain]

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. [|Mark Twain]

Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't. [|Mark Twain]

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. [|Mark Twain]

George Washington, as a boy, was ignorant of the commonest accomplishments of youth. He could not even lie. [|Mark Twain]

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please. [|Mark Twain]

Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times. [|Mark Twain]

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. [|Mark Twain]

God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. [|Mark Twain]

Golf is a good walk spoiled. [|Mark Twain]

Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person. [|Mark Twain]

Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. [|Mark Twain]

Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. [|Mark Twain]

Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with. [|Mark Twain]

He is now rising from affluence to poverty. [|Mark Twain]

Honesty is the best policy - when there is money in it. [|Mark Twain]

Humor is mankind's greatest blessing. [|Mark Twain]

Humor must not professedly teach and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever. [|Mark Twain]

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. [|Mark Twain]

I can live for two months on a good compliment. [|Mark Twain]

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. [|Mark Twain]

I don't give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way. [|Mark Twain]

I don't like to commit myself about heaven and hell - you see, I have friends in both places. [|Mark Twain]

I have been complimented many times and they always embarrass me; I always feel that they have not said enough. [|Mark Twain]

I have made it a rule never to smoke more that one cigar at a time. [|Mark Twain]

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. [|Mark Twain]

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting. [|Mark Twain]

I make it a rule never to smoke while I'm sleeping. [|Mark Twain]

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. [|Mark Twain]

I never let schooling interfere with my education. [|Mark Twain]

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. [|Mark Twain]

I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one. [|Mark Twain]

I've never let my school interfere with my education. [|Mark Twain]

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own. [|Mark Twain]

If man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man but deteriorate the cat. [|Mark Twain]

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. [|Mark Twain]

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. [|Mark Twain]

In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards. [|Mark Twain]

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours. [|Mark Twain]

It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand. [|Mark Twain]

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. [|Mark Twain]

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress. [|Mark Twain]

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. [|Mark Twain]

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not to deserve them. [|Mark Twain]

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. [|Mark Twain]

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected. [|Mark Twain]

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. [|Mark Twain]

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. [|Mark Twain]

It is easier to stay out than get out. [|Mark Twain]

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. [|Mark Twain]

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races. [|Mark Twain]

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. [|Mark Twain]

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it. [|Mark Twain]

It's good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling. [|Mark Twain]

It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense. [|Mark Twain]

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. [|Mark Twain]

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. [|Mark Twain]

Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one. [|Mark Twain]

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. [|Mark Twain]

Let us make a special effort to stop communicating with each other, so we can have some conversation. [|Mark Twain]

Let us not be too particular; it is better to have old secondhand diamonds than none at all. [|Mark Twain]

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen. [|Mark Twain]

Lord save us all from a hope tree that has lost the faculty of putting out blossoms. [|Mark Twain]

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. [|Mark Twain]

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it. [|Mark Twain]

Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. [|Mark Twain]

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to. [|Mark Twain]

Man was made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. [|Mark Twain]

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied. [|Mark Twain]

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. [|Mark Twain]

Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins. [|Mark Twain]

My books are like water; those of the great geniuses are wine. (Fortunately) everybody drinks water. [|Mark Twain]

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. [|Mark Twain]

Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident. [|Mark Twain]

Necessity is the mother of taking chances. [|Mark Twain]

Never put off till to-morrow what you can do day after to-morrow just as well. [|Mark Twain]

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. [|Mark Twain]

No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon. [|Mark Twain]

Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she laid an asteroid. [|Mark Twain]

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. [|Mark Twain]

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. [|Mark Twain]

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives. [|Mark Twain]

Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we." [|Mark Twain]

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet. [|Mark Twain]

Part of the secret of a success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. [|Mark Twain]

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. [|Mark Twain]

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. [|Mark Twain]

Principles have no real force except when one is well-fed. [|Mark Twain]

Prophesy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks. [|Mark Twain]

Prosperity is the best protector of principle. [|Mark Twain]

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. [|Mark Twain]

Repartee is something we think of twenty-four hours too late. [|Mark Twain]

Soap and education are not as sudden as a massacre, but they are more deadly in the long run. [|Mark Twain]

Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough. [|Mark Twain]

Substitute "damn" every time you're inclined to write "very"; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. [|Mark Twain]

Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah... didn't miss the boat. [|Mark Twain]

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. [|Mark Twain]

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. [|Mark Twain]

The Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes. [|Mark Twain]

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. [|Mark Twain]

The educated Southerner has no use for an 'R', except at the beginning of a word. [|Mark Twain]

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. [|Mark Twain]

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year. [|Mark Twain]

The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. [|Mark Twain]

The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. [|Mark Twain]

The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner. [|Mark Twain]

The lack of money is the root of all evil. [|Mark Twain]

The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine lives. [|Mark Twain]

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. [|Mark Twain]

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little. [|Mark Twain]

The more things are forbidden, the more popular they become. [|Mark Twain]

The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. [|Mark Twain]

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop. [|Mark Twain]

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. [|Mark Twain]

The Public is merely a multiplied "me." [|Mark Twain]

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all. [|Mark Twain]

The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. [|Mark Twain]

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. [|Mark Twain]

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. [|Mark Twain]

The secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow; there is no humor in Heaven. [|Mark Twain]

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right. [|Mark Twain]

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice. [|Mark Twain]

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession. [|Mark Twain]

There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded. [|Mark Twain]

There are lies, damned lies and statistics. [|Mark Twain]

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy. [|Mark Twain]

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one: keep from telling their happinesses to the unhappy. [|Mark Twain]

There are several good protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice. [|Mark Twain]

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce. [|Mark Twain]

There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable. [|Mark Twain]

There is no distinctly American criminal class - except Congress. [|Mark Twain]

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. [|Mark Twain]

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered - either by themselves or by others. [|Mark Twain]

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does all the work. [|Mark Twain]

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work. [|Mark Twain]

To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble. [|Mark Twain]

To refuse awards is another way of accepting them with more noise than is normal. [|Mark Twain]

To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence. [|Mark Twain]

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so. [|Mark Twain]

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. [|Mark Twain]

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. [|Mark Twain]

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. [|Mark Twain]

Water, taken in moderation, cannot hurt anybody. [|Mark Twain]

We Americans... bear the ark of liberties of the world. [|Mark Twain]

We are all alike, on the inside. [|Mark Twain]

We have the best government that money can buy. [|Mark Twain]

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before. [|Mark Twain]

What a wee little part of a person's life are his acts and his words! His real life is led in his head, and is known to none but himself. [|Mark Twain]

What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist takes only your skin. [|Mark Twain]

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir, mighty scarce. [|Mark Twain]

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce. [|Mark Twain]

When a person cannot deceive himself the chances are against his being able to deceive other people. [|Mark Twain]

When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. [|Mark Twain]

When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not. [|Mark Twain]

When in doubt tell the truth. [|Mark Twain]

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself. [|Mark Twain]

When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn. [|Mark Twain]

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. [|Mark Twain]

When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain. [|Mark Twain]

When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it's a sure sign you're getting old. [|Mark Twain]

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. [|Mark Twain]

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. [|Mark Twain]

Why shouldn't truth be stranger than fiction? Fiction, after all, has to make sense. [|Mark Twain]

Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation. [|Mark Twain]

Words are only painted fire; a look is the fire itself. [|Mark Twain]

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. [|Mark Twain]

Work is a necessary evil to be avoided. [|Mark Twain]

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been. [|Mark Twain]

You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. [|Mark Twain]